China, imperial: 8. Qing orManchu dynasty period,1636–1911HENRY CHOI SZE HANG

University of Hong Kong

Historically, the Qing or Manchu dynastyperiod (1636–1911) was the last empire inChinese history. On May 15, 1636, HongTaiji, the second khan of the Later Jin dynasty,changed his dynasty name toQing. Accordingto the Chinese belief of five elements, “Qing”symbolizes the element of water, which couldeffectively overthrow theMing dynasty whichrepresents the element of fire. The Manchusfinally occupied Beijing on June 5, 1644, fol-lowing the defeat of the peasant rebel, LiZicheng, who had overthrown the Mingdynasty (1368–1644). Li had forced the lastemperor of the Ming dynasty, Chongzhen,to commit suicide. As a result, from 1644Qing formally became the last Chinesedynasty. The Ming loyalists continued mili-tary resistance against the Qing troops inChina proper, which included the eighteeninland provinces within the Great Wall thatwere considered the boundary of the Han,Tang, and Ming dynasties. Finally in 1661Qing troops occupied Yunnan provincewhere they hanged Yongli, the last emperorof the Southern Ming dynasty. From 1662,the Qing dynasty officially became the soleruler in China proper.There were three ways the Qing dynasty

evolved to become the last Chinese empire.First, it performed political and religiousrituals to support its legitimacy to succeedthe Han-Chinese Ming dynasty. Second, itstarted military campaigns in the 17th and

18th centuries to occupy the Inner Asianborderland, including Tibet and Xinjiang,which were inhabited by nomadic tribesand were geographically well beyond Chinaproper. Third, it allowed the cultural ritualsof the nomadic people in order to claim itslegitimacy to rule over non-Han-Chinesepeople in Inner Asia.Like other dynasties in Chinese history,

Qing rulers emphasized the mandate ofHeaven to legitimize their rule in China, espe-cially the Manchus who were the descendantsof the Jurchens. The Jurchens founded the Jindynasty (1115–1234) and conquered thenorthern part of the Song dynasty regions(960–1279). The Manchu people wereregarded as barbarians according to theChinese dichotomy of Hua-Yi (Chinese-Barbarian) distinction. In 1635, Hong Taijiseized the “Imperial Seal of China” in militarycampaigns against Chahar Mongolia (today’sInner Mongolia). This seal, used by emperorsof different dynasties since the Qin dynasty(221–207 BCE) until the Yuan dynasty(1279–1368), symbolized that Hong Taijireceived the mandate of Heaven to be thelegitimate ruler of China. As a result, onMay 9, 1636, Manchu, Mongolian and Han-Chinese royal family members and officialsof the later Jin dynasty made a petition toHong Taiji and persuaded him to take thethrone of the Chinese emperor. On the samedate, Hong Taiji wrote a letter to the ruler ofKorea, which was still a tributary state of theMing dynasty, to persuade Korea to changeits loyalty toward the Manchus. In the letter,Hong Taiji argued that although the rulers ofthe Liao, Jin, and Yuan dynasties were barbar-ians, they were able to conquer China andbecome “Tianzi” (the Son of Heaven, Chinesename for emperor), proving that the mandate

1

The Encyclopedia of Empire, First Edition. Edited by John M. MacKenzie.© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.DOI: 10.1002/9781118455074.wbeoe287

of Heaven did not favor anyone except thosewith virtue. In other words, even if the Man-chus were barbarians, when they possessedvirtue, they could also become Chineseemperors.

When Qing troops occupied Beijing, theQing court held a royal funeral for MingEmperor Chongzhen and built a memorialfor Ming officials who were killed by the peas-ant rebels. In addition, it made a proclamation

IND

IA (

Bri

t.)

SIAM

JAPAN

TSINGHAI

SZECHWAN

SHANSI

HONAN

KIRIN

HUNAN

YUNNAN

KWANGSI

FUKIE

N

CHEKIANG

Lanchow

Taiyuan

Sian

Chengtu

Kaifeng

KunmingKweiyang

Kweilin

Changsha

Canton

Wuchang Shanghai

Hangchow

Nanking

Anking

1

2

3

1

4 56B

UR

MA

(Brit

.)

RUSSIA

FORMOSA(Taiwan)(to Japan,1895–1945)

Peking

Tientsin

South China Sea

FRENCHINDOCHINA

(to France,1885–1953)

KWEICHOW

AN

HW

EI

KIA

NG

SI

SHEN

SI

KIANGSU

FENGTIEN

SHANTUNG

Tsinan

Fuchow

Main foreign leased territories:

1 Port Arthur (Japanese from 1905)

2 Weihaiwei (British from 1898)

3 Kiaochow (German from 1897)

4 Kwangchow Bay (French from 1898)

6 Hong Kong (British from 1843)

5 Macao (Portuguese from 1557)

Outbreak of the revolution, October 10, 1911

Provinces in rebellion by end of October

Provinces

800 km

500 miles

I N N E RM

ON G O L I A

KOREA (to Japan, 1910–1945)

Nanchang

Chungking

Provinces in rebellion by early December

HU

KWANGTUNG

RUSSIA

CH

IH

LI

HankowHUPEI

K

AN

SU

HEILUNGKIANG

MA

NC

HU

RI

A

Mukden

O U T E R M O N G O L I A

Figure 1 China 1911.

2

that the Qing court shared the same hatred asMing subjects for the rebellion of LiZicheng, so it conducted military campaignsto expel Li’s forces from Beijing to achieverighteous justice. However, when Qing troopsdecisively defeated Li’s force in Shaanxi prov-ince, the Qing court condemned Ming PrinceFu in the south, who made himself a newemperor without fulfilling his responsibilityto take revenge for Emperor Chongzhen bykilling Li Zicheng. This justified the Qingcourt’s action of conquering theMing loyalistsin the south. After the conquest of the Mingloyalists, Emperor Kangxi and Qianlong wereeager to recruit Han-Chinese intellectuals toparticipate in a national-sponsored projectof composing and collecting Chinese Confu-cian canons. The promotion of Confucianlearnings ensured the Qing emperor wouldbe the legitimate ruler over all Han-Chinesesubjects.The formulation of the theory supporting

the legitimacy of the Manchu rule of Chinawas well illustrated by Emperor Yongzheng’sbook, The Great Doctrine for EnlighteningThose who Had Been Misled, published in1728. The book collected various argumentswritten by Yongzheng and the confession ofZeng Jing, an intellectual who used Hua-Yidistinction to challenge the legitimacy ofYongzheng’s throne. Yongzheng argued thatthe Qing dynasty originated fromManchuria,this was similar to the native places and originof all other Chinese. Besides, although KingShun and King Wen were barbarians, theywere the ideal sage kings according toConfucianism, so even barbarians can havethe virtuous legitimacy to be Chineseemperor. Yongzheng further argued thatduring the golden ages of the Han, Tang,and Song dynasties, China still had invasionsfrom the northern and western nomadicpeople, who were outside the influence ofChinese civilization and thus became barbar-ians. However, when the Qing took over

China proper, it also annexed the tribal statesof Mongolia, so there were no longer anybarbarians living outside the “Tianxia”(All-under-the-heaven, the name of the Chi-nese world order). As a result, Yongzhengemphasized that there should no longer beany distinction between Chinese and barbar-ians. Therefore, the Manchu military con-quest of borderland, which was outside thetraditional boundary of the Han-Chinesedynasties, further enhanced the legitimacyof the Manchu rule in China.Emperor Kangxi suppressed the Rebellion

of the Three Feudatories and conqueredZheng’s Taiwan, the last stronghold of Mingloyalists, in 1681 and 1683 respectively. Thiscreated the foundation for the Qing court tohave military campaigns to expand its bound-ary beyond China proper. Xinjiang, Tibet,and Qinghai, known as the Xiyu (westernregions) in Chinese history, became strategi-cally important in geopolitics because Dzun-gar Khanate basically unified these regions by1677. More importantly, the Dzungar Khan-ate tried to seek military assistance fromRussia so it could forcibly annex KhalkhaMongolia (today’s Mongolian People’sRepublic) as a tributary state of the QingEmpire. In other words, the Dzungar Khanatewould restore the territory of its predecessor,Esen Taish, who captured the Ming EmperorZhengtong in 1450 and was the most power-ful Oirat Khagan. Had the Dzungar Khanatesucceeded, it would have become the Russian“collaborator” in invading the Qing Empire.When the Dzungar Khanate annexed

Khalkha Mongolia, some Khalkha escapedto Inner Mongolia and sought help fromthe Qing court. Emperor Kangxi led armieshimself to conduct three military campaignsagainst the Dzungar Khanate in 1690, 1691,and 1696 and forced the ruler of the DzungarKhanate, Choros Erdeniin Galda, to commitsuicide in 1697. The Qing annexed Qinghaiin 1698. Tsewang Rabtan succeeded the

3

throne of Galda and kept the military spot inYili. Rabtan was able to restore the militarystrength of the Dzungar Khanate and con-quered Lasha in 1717. Qing forces were ableto occupy Tibet and Ürümqi in 1720 and1722 respectively.Stationed at eastern Qinghai, the Khoshut

Khanate was always appeased by the Qingcourt, during the Kangxi’s reign, as a strategyfor isolating the Dzungar Khanate. Kangxireneged on his promise of letting the KhoshutKhanate restore its rule in Tibet after theDzungar Khanate’s conquest in 1717. WhenEmperor Yongzheng succeeded Kangxi’sthrone, Lobdzan Dandzi, the ruler of theKhoshut Khanate, rebelled against the QingEmpire in 1723. Dandzi was suppressed bythe Qing armies and fled to join the DzungarKhanate and the Qing then occupied all ofQinghai. In 1727, Galdantseren succeededRabtan’s throne. He refused Yongzheng’sdemand of surrendering Dandzi and againcrossed the borderline of the Qing Empire.In 1729, Yongzheng started various militarycampaigns against the Dzungar Khanate,but Yongzheng followed Kangxi’s thinkingthat the Qing armies did not pose any threatto Yili due to their logistic problem of a longsupply line originating in Gansu province.Instead, the Qing dispatched a large groupof garrisons to station at the borders of Qing-hai and Khalkha Mongolia. They then waitedfor the Dzungar Khanate to invade havingtraveled a long distance. When they wereclose, Qing troops launched a surprise attackon them and, as a result, the Qing did nothave any further decisive battles with theDzungar Khanate and occupied Yili untilQianlong’s reign.One of the main legacies of Emperor

Yongzheng was the Sinification of the admin-istration of ethnic-minority groups in Chinaproper. To accomplish this, the central gov-ernment appointed Han-Chinese officials torule over non-Han-Chinese people in

different southwest provinces, which had beenthe duty of native tribe headmen in the past.This newpolicy led to the rebellion of theMiaopeople in China proper, marking the begin-ning of so-called “Ten Great Campaigns,”which was celebrated in Qing official annalsas Qianlong’s most important militaryachievement. Thewar scenes of the campaignswere drawn as the result of cooperationbetween Chinese painters and Jesuit mission-aries like Giuseppe Castiglione. The paintingswere seen by Qianlong as the best way of cel-ebrating the greatness of the Qing Empire.According to The Record of All Completionwritten by Qianlong in 1792, the ten cam-paigns include twowars suppressing the rebel-lion of the Jinchuan hill peoples in Sichuan(1747–1749, 1771–1776); two wars conquer-ing the Dzungar Khanate (1755–1759), whichresulted in the capture of Yili and the estab-lishment of Xinjiang province; one war sup-pressing Muslim people in southwesternXinjiang (1757–1759); one invasion of Burma(1767–1769); one war suppressing the rebel-lion of Lin Shuangwen in Taiwan(1786–1788); one invasion of Vietnam(1788–1789); and two wars defending Tibetagainst Nepal invasions (1790–1792), whichmarked the beginning of stationing Chinesetroops in Tibet. Qianlong named himself as“Old Man of All Completion” because of thesuccess of these campaigns.The emphasis on using high-level military

force in building the Qing Empire was justi-fied by Qianlong’s quotation of TangEmperor Taizong’s writings claiming thatthe peace settlement could only be sustainedby demonstrating strong military force. Thisexplained why, of 600 000 Dzungar people,30 percent of them were massacred by Qingtroops, while 50 percent died in a pandemic,and only 20 percent managed to flee to Russiaand Kazakhstan.To secure peace, delegates from Inner

Asian states were invited to visit the Qing

4

court to observe the Qing’s strong militarypower and witness demonstrations ofarchery skills by Manchu general Zhaohui.This show of force was very effective, andensured that Kazakhstan, Kokand (a cityin today’s Uzbekistan), and regions as faraway as Afghanistan, became tributarystates of the Qing Empire in addition toKorea, the Ryukyu Islands, Vietnam,Burma, Siam, and Nepal. The farthestboundary of the Qing Empire in the lateQianlong period reached Sakhalin Islandin the northeast; the protectorate RyukyuIslands in the east; Taiwan in the southeast;the Nepal-Tibet border in the southwest; theSino-Afghanistan border in the west; theprotectorate Kazakhstan in the northwest;along with Uriankhai, Khalkha Mongolia,and the Outer Khingan Mountains in thenorth. The territory controlled by the QingEmpire was second only to the MongolEmpire during the Yuan dynasty.A massive migration of Han-Chinese peopleto Manchuria and these newly acquiredterritories, which were outside China’sjurisdiction before the Qing dynasty, conso-lidated the standardization of cultureswithin the empire. This had never beenachieved during the Yuan dynasty despiteits stronger military strength and larger ter-ritory than that of the Manchus.Traditional Chinese historiography judged

that the 130 years’ rule of emperors Kangxi,Yongzheng, and Qianlong was the goldenage of the Qing Empire, even though thedecline of the Qing Empire started in the laterpart of the Qianlong period. However, if onlyevaluating the Qing Empire from the perspec-tive of military strength, the seeds of theQing’s decline had already been sown in1644. The conquest of the Ming loyalistsand the suppression of the Rebellion of theThree Feudatories all relied on the effort ofthe surrendered Han-Chinese generals ofthe Ming court and Han-Chinese Green

Standard Armies respectively, rather thanthe Manchu Eight-Banner Armies. The Man-chus were incompetent in actual combatand only took on the role of supervisingHan-Chinese troops during battles. However,the Green Standard Armies soon also losttheir strength and morale despite numericalsuperiority over the rebels, as in the caseagainst the rebellion of the Jinchuan hillpeople.During the reign of Jiaqing (1796–1820),

the successor to Qianlong, a continuous out-break of river flooding, theWhite LotusRebel-lion (1796–1804), various Miao rebellions(1796–1806), and theEightTrigramsUprising(1813) exhausted theQing’s national financialreserves within a few years. The Qing courtcould no longer rely on the corrupted Eight-Banner Armies and Greed Standard Armiesto suppress rebellion, so it became necessaryto recruit local troops raisedbyvillage gentries.Besides, despite Yongzheng and Qianlong’sefforts to persuade the bannermen to use theManchu language,most of the bannermen losttheir ability to speakManchu. But thememor-ials were still written in Manchu until the endof the Qing dynasty as the last stronghold pre-serving the Manchu identity of the QingEmpire. These events signified the decline ofthe Qing Empire financially, militarily, andculturally.The Qing Empire was at the peak of

Sino-centrism in Chinese history in handlingforeign relationships within its own worldorder. The Chinese world order could bedivided into three categories: Inner Asianzone, Sinic zone, and an outer zone. TheInner Asian zone included Mongolia, Tibet,and Central Asia; the Sinic zone includedKorea, Japan, Ryukyu Islands, and Vietnamwhich were culturally influenced by China;the outer zone included European countrieslike Russia, Britain, and others which wereoutside the influence of Chinese culture.The Inner Asian zone belonged to the

5

dynasty’s internal affairs administration,while the other two zones were controlledby the external affairs administration of theQing Empire.Since the establishment of the Qin dynasty,

the wealthy agricultural Chinese dynastiesfaced military invasion from the poorernomadic Inner Asian peoples because of theirdifferent economic structures. Empires priorto the Qing dynasty used a tributary systemand frontier trade as the ways of maintaininga peaceful relationship between China andInner Asian peoples, but such peace was onlysustainable when the military power of Chinawas strong. In other words, these Inner Asianstates were still independent and outside ofChinese jurisdiction.From the establishment of the Qing

Dynasty, the Qing rulers recognized the needfor direct control of these nomadic people inorder to ensure the long-term stability of thedynasty. To accomplish this Hong Taiji estab-lished aMongolian Office (Monggo jurgan) inManchu in 1636 and then renamed it as theLifanyuan (Barbarian Control Office) in1638 to handle the affairs related to Mongolsand, later, Tibetans, Uyghurs, Miao people,and even Russians. TheManchu name of Lifa-nyuan is tulergi golo be dasara jurgan, literallymeaning the Ministry Ruling the Outer Pro-vinces. This reflected a brand new mindsetfrom previous dynasties, in that Inner Asianpeople were to become direct imperial sub-jects of the Qing Empire. At designated inter-vals, Inner Asian nobles were required totravel and make pilgrimage to the Qingemperor in Beijing and participate in theimperial hunt held by the Qing emperor inMulanWeichang, north of Chengde. The pro-cedures for these two rituals were handled bythe Lifanyuan and were unique in the QingEmpire. The rituals put more emphasis onthe building of personal relationships betweenthe emperor and the nobles than on the sub-ordination of the nobles to the emperor.

Marriage between the Qing royal family andthe Mongolian nobles was encouraged. Inaddition, in the case of the Sino-Tibet rela-tionship, since Hong Taiji the Qing emperorswere given entitlement by the Tibetan lamasas Manjusri (Mañjuśrī) bodhisattva. EmperorKangxi started the conferment of the PenchenLama, and Emperor Qianlong even usedpaintings to depict himself as the reincarna-tion of Manjusri. Because of this, the Qingemperors obtained a more superior politicaland religious status than the four Tulkus inTibet. Through all of these political and cul-tural mechanisms, Inner Asian peoples werechanged fromouter barbarians into inner bar-barians. In other words, the Qing Empireinternalized its Sino-Inner Asian relationship.The Qing emperors transcended Han-Chinese identity to support their legitimaterule in the Inner Asian regions.In handling foreign relations the Qing

Empire inherited the Ming’s tributary system.The tributary system of the Qing Empirebefore the 19th century, both in theory andin real practice, was that the various countriesin the Sinic zone as well as the Inner Asianzone sent envoys to pay tribute, using theirlocal products, and to perform kotow to theQing emperor at designated intervals. Inreturn, the Qing emperor recognized thekings in their respective countries and offeredthem quantities of silk or other qualityChinese products. In doing this, the QingEmpire had suzerainty over these tributarystates without colonizing them. However,these states did not enjoy equal status withChina, because, according to the Sino-centricworldview, all foreigners who came to Chinashould be submissive and transformed by thesupremacy of Chinese culture. This Sino-centric mindset came into conflict with themodern European idea that all nations andsovereigns are equal and that they shouldbuild their diplomatic relations through thesigning of treaties based on equal footing in

6

accordance with international law. This led tothe diplomatic disputes between China andRussia in the 17th century, and with Britainin late 18th and early 19th centuries.In the mid-17th century, Russia built mil-

itary fortresses at Nerchinsk and Albazin,and tried to invade and loot the Amur Riverregion of Manchuria. At the two battles ofAlbazin from 1685 to 1688, Russian troopswere besieged in Albazin and Russia realizedthe great military strength of the QingEmpire. At that time, Russia was preoccu-pied with war against Poland as well as aninternal power struggle, so it was unable todispatch extra forces to fight the Qing troops.At the same time, the Qing Empire was reco-vering after eight years of bloody war to sup-press the Rebellion of the Three Feudatories,so the two countries finally signed the Treatyof Nerchinsk on October 2, 1688 to decidethe Sino-Russian borderline in the northeast.Since the Qing Empire controlled KhalkhaMongolia, Russia also wanted to determinethe Sino-Russian borderline between Siberiaand Khalkha Mongolia, resulting in the twocountries signing the Treaty of Kyakhta onAugust 23, 1727. Through these two treatiesthe Qing Empire effectively held back Rus-sian expansion in Asia for almost one anda half centuries. This ended when Russiamade use of an opportunity during theAnglo-French expedition to China from1858 to 1860 to seize the whole Amur regionafter they had established Vladivostok as theonly ice-free sea port on the Pacific Oceanin Asia.The terms of the above treaties were based

on equal footing, but the mechanisms work-ing behind the treaties were still the tributarysystem based on the Sino-centric mindset.After the signing of the Treaty of Nerchinsk,Russia sent an envoy to Beijing and requestedfree trade with China. Emperor Kangxibelieved this request did not adhere to the sta-tus of a tributary state, so he decided that the

Chinese general stationed at Amur River hadthe authority to reject any Russian petition ifit violated the suitable manner of a tributarystate. As the Russians came from a distantplace, Kangxi felt that a Chinese emperorshould show benevolence toward such distantpeople, so he allowed Russian merchants ofnot more than 200 people to travel to Beijingfor a tribute trade every three years. Theylived in Russian quarters managed by theLifanyuan and could stay for no more than80 days. In the negotiation of the Treaty ofKyakhta, the Russian envoy requested tonegotiate it at Beijing, but Emperor Yongz-heng refused on the grounds that there wasno precedent for negotiating a treaty with for-eign envoys in Beijing, so the Qing officialsand Russian envoy negotiated the treaty atKyakhta instead. Therefore, before the mid-19th century, the Sino-Russian relationshipwas handled by the Lifanyuan within theframework of the tributary system rather thana modern treaty system. This was the strategyused by the Qing emperors to show thestrength of the empire to their imperial sub-jects, in that even European countries couldbecome tributary states of China. The diplo-matic gesture of ignoring the equality ofnations, as mentioned in international law,made China become a semi-civilized country,as its Asian counterparts also did according toScottish legal philosopher James Lorimer’stheory in the 19th century.There might have been direct military con-

frontation between the Qing Empire and Brit-ain well before the Opium War (1839–1842)when Nepal requested Britain, which alreadyoccupied over half of Indian territories, to dis-patch troops to defend Kathmandu, Nepal’scapital, against the Qing’s attack. But Qingand Nepal soon reached a peace agreementin September 1792 and confrontation wasavoided. A Sino-British commercial conflictwas started in 1757 when the Qing court triedto limit foreign trade to Canton. James Flint

7

of the British East India Company went toTianjin to complain about unfair treatmentfaced by British merchants in Canton tradeand requested the Qing court to reopen tradein Ningpo. This move violated Qing’s tribu-tary system because no foreigner could cometo the north without the Chinese royalapproval, so Flint was detained in Macaufor three years before he could return to India.As a result, Qianlong formulated the Cohongsystem in Canton whereby foreign merchantscould only arrange trade with Cohong mer-chants in Canton appointed by the Qingcourt. In addition, various limitations wereplaced on foreign merchants in Canton suchas a ban on bringing wives to Canton and arule that all foreignmerchants needed to leaveCanton for Macau in winter. All such limita-tions soon led to commercial and culturaldisputes between British merchants and Chi-nese officials in Canton and, finally, to theOpium War.King George III of Britain tried to resolve

the Sino-British commercial conflict by dis-patching the Earl of Macartney and LordAmherst as envoys to China in 1793 and1816 respectively. Macartney was able tomeetQianlong at Chengde during the celebratingof Qianlong’s birthday. However, Qianlongrefused Macartney’s request for the stationingof a British envoy and the establishment of aBritish merchant house in Beijing. This wasbecause Britain was still regarded as a tribu-tary state of China and such requests violatedthe tributary system. Jiaqing even refused tomeet Amherst on the ground that Amherstlanded in Tianjin without royal approvaland refused to perform kotow to Jiaqing. Suchdiplomatic conflict was due to China’s self-depiction as the “Celestial Empire,” and thecenter of the world. Therefore, no othernation or sovereignty should have a statusequal to China or the Chinese emperor. How-ever, neither Qianlong nor Jiaqing realizedthat Britain, especially after the Napoleonic

Wars (1803–1815), was the strongest nationin Europe and had the largest colonial empirein the world including India, Australia, andCanada as its main components. The normal-ization of foreign relationship between theQing Empire and British Empire becameimpossible.In the remaining period of the Qing

dynasty the Opium War started the painfulstruggle for China of transformation froman empire into a nation and the change ofthe Chinese people’s identity from imperialsubjects into citizens. Britain defeated theQing Empire in the Opium War and theTreaty of Nanking was signed on 29 August1842. The treaty stipulated that China neededto open Canton, Fuzhou, Amoy, Ningpo, andShanghai as treaty ports to the British mer-chants without any limitations such as thosestipulated in the Canton-based Cohong sys-tem in the past. America and France followedthe British example by adding most-favored-nation clauses in commercial treaties signedwith China in 1844. China no longer usedthe term “barbarians” in these treaties tomake reference to the nationals of theseWest-ern nations.The opening of the treaty ports started the

process of China’s transformation from tribu-tary system to treaty-port system. The treaty-port system was further formulated andenhanced by the signing of the Treaty of Tian-jin (1858) and Treaty of Beijing (1860). Thesetreaties were regarded as unequal treatieswhich infringed on China’s sovereign rightsbecause they granted extraterritorial rightsto the Western consuls to have legal jurisdic-tion over their subjects in China. Additionally,the stationing of foreign consuls in Beijing andtreaty ports further dissolved the tributarysystem because the consuls represented thesovereigns of their respective nations and theyno longer needed to perform the kotow ritualfor the Chinese emperor. This practice wasnot only followed by Western nations but

8

even Japan, China’s tributary state in the past.In 1873, the Japanese envoy, SoejimaTaneomi, refused to perform kotow and, withhands at his front, only bowed towardEmperor Tongzhi.In 1861 the Tsung-li Ya-men (which liter-

ally means the Office in Charge of Affairs ofAll Nations) was established to handle foreignaffairs replacing the Lifanyuan. The establish-ment of the Tsung-li Ya-men was an impor-tant turning point that diplomaticallytransformed the Qing from a Sino-centricempire into a nation in the world. TheTsung-li Ya-men regarded Western nationsto have equal status with China as a nation,rather than as barbarians or “fan” as the Chi-nese name of the Lifanyuan suggested. But,the Tsung-li Ya-men also was handling themost important issues in the empire becauseit was created as an administrative departmentand enjoyed higher status than the Six Boards,which in the past supervised the Lifanyuan.The Tsung-li Ya-men was more than a pureforeign office handling diplomatic affairs withforeign nations; it also initiated and super-vised the establishment of numerous modernenterprises relating to commerce, transport,military, and education in the late 19thcentury.Themost important organization under the

Tsung-li Ya-men was the Chinese ImperialMaritime Customs (CIMC). The CIMC wasfirst established by Britain in Shanghai in1853 to collect customs duties from foreignmerchant ships on behalf of Chinese authori-tieswhen the original Shanghai customshousewas destroyed by Taiping-related rebels. Soonthe CIMC established offices in treaty portswith Robert Hart as the inspector general,who was answerable to the Tsung-li Ya-men.The foreign-staffed CIMC plus foreign settle-ments in treaty ports, namely Shanghai, Can-ton, and Tianjin, became more or lessindependent kingdoms outside Chinesejurisdiction but they also co-existed with their

Chinese counterparts. Hart was alwaysreferred to as “our Hart” by Chinese officialsin the Tsung-li Ya-men because of his contri-bution in settling the Sino-British and Sino-French diplomatic disputes in 1876 and 1884respectively, and his facilitating the increasein the customs duties rate after the Boxer Pro-tocol in 1901. The Qing court offered Hart thehonorary title of “Junior Guardian of the HeirApparent,” which was the highest honor anyforeign official in the Chinese governmenthad ever received before. Hart simultaneouslyshowed loyalty to China and Britain, his homecountry.Many foreignmaritime customs staffwere famous sinologists who admiredChineseculture. The appointment of foreigners toadministrative positions was not new as theQing Empire had appointed Manchu andHan-Chinese people for the same governmentposts before, but themaritime customs organ-ization and treaty-port system changed the oldManchu-Han distinction into a new Chinese-foreign distinction.Apart from Hart, Anson Burlingame, an

American diplomat, was also a key personin transforming the Qing Empire into a dip-lomatic nation. Burlingame was appointed bythe Qing court in 1867 to lead the first Chi-nese diplomatic mission to visit Westernnations. After the Opium War, Burlingamehelped China sign the first equal treaty withAmerica, which allowed Chinese people tobecome citizens in America. Burlingame alsoled a mission to visit various Europeannations. This paved the way for China toestablish its embassies abroad, which hadbeen ignored by Qianlong when Macartneymade such a suggestion in 1793.The tributary system was not immediately

replaced by the treaty-port system after thedefeat of the Qing Empire in the OpiumWar. It was still in force even after the occu-pation of Beijing by Anglo-French forces in1860, as it was well into the 1880s, with thelast tributary mission to Chinamade by Nepal

9

in 1908. In the eyes of the Qing court, thetreaty-port system was only a supplementof the tributary system that acted as a policyof control-by-a-light-rein (chi-mi) of foreignbarbarians. This was accomplished withoutalternating the power hierarchy of China withthe Chinese emperor at the center of the Chi-nese world order. The employment of RobertHart to supervise the CIMC and CharlesGeorge Gordon’s leadership of the Sino-foreign-composed Ever Victorious Army tosuppress the Taiping rebels were examplesof China allowing various “foreign barbar-ians” to be ruled by the Qing Empire and tobe cultivated to Chinese culture accordingto the Sino-centric ideology. Despite theadoption of the Christian doctrine, Taipingrebels, who occupied the southern part ofthe Yangtze River region from 1853 to1864, also shared the same type of Sino-centric ideology when they proclaimed JohnBonham, the Hong Kong governor, as “Eng-lish Chief” while Bonham was visiting Nank-ing, the rebel’s capital in 1853. In their view hecame from thousands of miles away toacknowledge the sovereignty of the TaipingKingdom, so in return the “Celestial dynasty”permitted the British to do trade in China andassist the rebels to exterminate the Manchus.After all the eagerness of Han-Chinese

Confucian gentries to help the Manchu-Qingcourt suppress Han-Chinese, Taiping rebelsdemonstrated the success of the Qing Empirein establishing its legitimate rule of Han-Chinese people since the 17th century. There-fore, the Qing court successfully suppressedthe Taiping and Nien rebels in the 1860s,recaptured Xinjiang from Muslim rebels in1877 and forced Russia to return Yili. Theloyalty of the Han-Chinese gentries and thesupport of foreign advisors further enhancedthe confidence of the Qing court to keep thetributary system and Sino-centric mindset,leading them to hope that a revival of theQing Empire was still possible.

However, the Japanese invasion and thepartition of China by the various powers inthe late 1890s forced the Qing Empire to endits Sino-centricmindset. In 1876, Japan forcedKorea to sign a treaty stipulating that Koreawas an independent nation, which impliedKorea was formally no longer the tributarystate of China. The Tianjin Convention in1885 further affected China’s suzerainty overKorea in that China could not dispatch troopsto Korea without prior notification to Japan.The complete defeat of China in the FirstSino-JapaneseWar (1894–1895) gave the finalblow to the Chinese world order. This was thefirst time in Chinese history that China wasdefeated by one of its tributary states andwas required to cede territory to Japan. Thisproved the failure of the Self-StrengthenMovement (1861–1894), which tried to mod-ernize the Qing Empire militarily and eco-nomically without altering its political system.The outbreak of the xenophobic Boxer

Rebellion, which aimed to kill Western mis-sionaries and foreign envoys with supportfrom radical Chinese officials, led to the occu-pation of Beijing by the Eight Power Expedi-tion in 1900. The indifferent attitude ofChinese commoners who witnessed thebeheading of their compatriots after theBoxer Rebellion was a typical scene in theearly 20th-century China. The irrationalityand indifference of the Chinese commonerstoward Chinese national affairs were criti-cized by Chinese intellectuals as an examplethat Chinese people lacked modern nationalcitizen qualities and Chinese nationalism.Liang Qichao, one of the most influentialintellectuals in the late Qing period, publisheda series of articles called “The New Citizen” todiscuss the ways of improving the qualities ofChinese nationals. Bushido, the nationalspirit of Japan, became one of the importantreference points of Liang’s articles and hebelieved that China should revive its spiritof martial arts in order to save the country

10

from the foreign invasion. To rescue Chinafrom the crisis of national survival Liang sug-gested it was necessary to use the concept“nation” to replace the idea of depicting Chi-nese empire as “all-under-the-heaven” andcultivate the Chinese people with the idea ofa national consciousness to replace theemphasis on self-interests. Another intellec-tual, Zhang Binglin, even argued that China(Zhongguo) should be understood as a nationculturally adhered to the Han-Chinese cul-ture. In fact, over two and a half centuriesof Sinicization of the Qing Empire alreadyconformed the Qing dynasty to fit the Chinaof Zhang’s definition.Japan’s defeat of Russia in the Russo-

Japanese War in 1905 further convinced theQing court of the need for political reformbecause many Chinese intellectuals at thattime believed that the political systemof a con-stitutional monarchy accounted for Japan’svictory over the absolute monarchy of Russia.Despite the Qing court’s announcement ofpracticing constitutional monarchy in thenear future, the revolutionaries, led by Dr.SunYat-sen, believed thatwhat theQing courttried to implement was a fake constitutionalsystem, which just aimed to prolong the ruleof the Qing court over Han-Chinese peoplewho would remain loyal imperial subjectsand submissive to the Manchu officials.Therefore, Sun proposed the Three People’sPrinciples and one of the principles wasnationalism.Sun’s version of nationalism was different

to Liang’s version as Sun suggested Han-Chinese nationalism as an ethnic idea ratherthan the establishment of a nation-state in themodern sense as suggested by Liang. Sun usedthe slogan “Expel Dalu, revive China” toattract support from fellow Chinese nationalsfor the revolutionary cause. “Dalu” was aderogatory term for nomadic people includ-ing the Manchus. The 1911 Revolution finallyoverthrew the Qing dynasty and forced the

last Qing emperor Puyi to abdicate from histhrone. The last chief Han-Chinese officialin the Qing court, Yuan Shikai, was formallyinaugurated as the first president of theRepublic of China in Beijing in 1912 afterthe surrender of the post of temporary presi-dent of the republic by Sun in Nanjing.TheQingdynastyhadbeen the third longest

dynasty after theTang andMingdynasties andit left a political legacy that was unsurpassableby other Chinese dynasties. The Qing was atruly cosmopolitanempire that in its 249years’rule over China proper, including the InnerAsian borderland, brought long-term stabilityand harmony between the Han-Chinese andthe ethnic-minority people in the ChineseEmpire, which was rare in Chinese history.As a result, even Sun Yat-sen and his revolu-tionary followers, who upheld anti-Manchunationalism during the late Qing period,needed to uphold the slogan “FiveRaces underOne Union” as the main national principlewhen the Republic of China was established,so the new republic had a new five-colornational flag.The flag composedof red, yellow,blue, white, and black colors, representing theHans,Manchus,Mongols,Muslims, andTibe-tans respectively. Anti-Chinese sentiment insome Inner Asian borderlands, because ofSinicization, made Xinjiang and Tibet pro-claim de facto independence from China in1912. This lasted until 1949 when the People’sRepublic of China was established. Neverthe-less, the effective military expansion ofChinese borders and the Sinicization of theManchus, as well as the administration ofethnic-minority groups in the Qing dynasty,all added to the foundation of China tobecome the enormous geographical entitythat is China today.

SEE ALSO: British Empire: 1. 1707–1914;China and treaty-port imperialism; China,imperial: 7. Ming dynasty period, 1368–1644;Christianity and empire; Confucianism; French

11

Empire: 7. Asia; Gunboat diplomacy; JapaneseEmpire; Russia: 4. Empire (1721–1917); Tribu-tary systems

FURTHER READING

Barfield, Thomas J. 1989. The Perilous Frontier:Nomadic Empires and China. Cambridge, MA:Basil Blackwell.

Chia, Ning. 1993. “The Lifanyuan and the InnerAsian Rituals in the Early Qing (1644–1795).”Late Imperial China, 14: 60–92. DOI: 10.1353/late.1993.0011.

Crossley, Pamela Kyle. 1997. The Manchus. Cam-bridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers.

Crossley, Pamela Kyle. 1999. A Translucent Mir-ror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideol-ogy. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Elliott, Mark C. 2001. The ManchuWay: The EightBanners and Ethnic Identity in Late ImperialChina. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Esherick, Joseph W. 2006. “How the Qing BecameChina.” In Joseph W. Esherick, Hasan Kayali,and Eric Van Young (Eds.), Empire to Nation:Historical Perspectives on the Making of theModern World: 229–259. Lanham: Rowman &Littlefield Publishers.

Fairbank, John King (Ed.) 1968. The ChineseWorld Order: Traditional China’s Foreign Rela-tions. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Hevia, James L. 1995. Cherishing Men from Afar:Qing Quest Ritual and the Macartney Embassyof 1793. Durham: Duke University Press.

Ho, Ping-ti. 1967. “The Significance of the Ch’ingPeriod in Chinese History.” The Journal of AsianStudies, 26: 189–195. DOI: 10.2307/2051924.

Lattimore, Owen. 1962. Studies in FrontierHistory: Collected Papers, 1928–1958. Paris:Mouton & Co.

Liu, Lydia H. 2004. The Clash of Empires: TheInvention of China in Modern World Making.Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Millward, James A., Ruth W. Dunnell, Mark C.Elliott, Philippe Forêt (Eds.) 2004. New QingImperial History: The Making of Inner AsianEmpire at Qing Chengde. London: RoutledgeCurzon.

Newby, L. J. 2005. The Empire and the Khanate:A Political History of Qing Relations with Kho-qand c. 1760–1860. Leiden: Brill.

Rawski, Evelyn S. 1996. “Presidential Address:Reenvisioning the Qing: The Significance ofthe Qing Period in Chinese History.” The Jour-nal of Asian Studies, 55: 829–850. DOI: 10.2307/2646525.

12